[Film Review] Halloween Kills (2021)

The long-awaited Halloween Kills is finally here. Postponed a full year due to Covid, David Gordon Green’s newest installment in the decades long saga of a killer coming home returns to theaters just in time for the titular holiday. And it returns with a bang. This brutal sequel is perhaps the bloodiest of the franchise as masked murderer Michael Myers (James Jude Courtney, Nick Castle) tears through town on his way back to his childhood home of Haddonfield. Though the nihilistic tone combines with dark violence for moments of pure terror, the second chapter in Green’s Halloween trilogy often feels overwrought and convoluted with way too many competing storylines that stretch the bounds of logic. The ideas are strong, but nothing ever quite clicks into place, leaving a finished product that feels like a jumbled mess. 

Green’s story picks up immediately after the events of the 2018 film by following Cameron Elam (Dylan Arnold) as he walks home from the Halloween dance. A parallel flashback story shows moments after the events of the 1978 film as Hawkins (Thomas Mann) and his partner track Michael (Airon Armstrong) through the streets. We also meet other Haddonfield residents as they commemorate the holiday, blissfully unaware of Michael’s most recent killing spree. As the survivors of Michael’s original attacks learn of his escape, they band together and form a bloodthirsty mob bent on killing him once and for all. Driven by fear rather than reason, the mob quickly spirals out of control threatening anyone in its path. Halloween Kills expands on Laurie’s (Jamie Lee Curtis) arc in the prior film and attempts to make an interesting point about the ethics of vigilante justice as the town vows to end Michael’s reign of terror by any means necessary.

The mob may be angry, but their bloodlust is nothing compared to Michael’s. Extreme kills and gory effects pervade every act of the film, rivaling the carnage of Rob Zombie’s franchise entries. Green expands on Michael’s iconic head tilt in the original and leans into the killer’s fascination with death and bodily destruction. He kills swiftly and brutally, at one point amusing himself by stabbing a completely incapacitated, but still living, victim with every knife in the kitchen. Halloween Kills is at its best when leaning into its brutal slasher bones and reveling in the carnage. A particularly horrific sequence sees Michael stalking victims near a playground leading to shocking deaths and terrifying suspense. An earlier scene shows his escape from the burning Strode house as he single handedly dispatches with a crew of firemen. Even Laurie’s stomach surgery is shown in gruesome detail. To his credit, Green does not pull his punches, killing beloved characters and strangers alike with heartbreaking glee. 

While the 2018 film focused mainly on the Strode women, Halloween Kills expands the story to show the effect Michael’s crimes have had on the entire town. Many characters from the original film reprise their roles and face down the Shape once again; Lindsey Wallace (Kyle Richards), Marion Chambers (Nancy Stephens), and Leigh Brackett (Charles Cyphers) return along with Lonnie Elam and Tommy Doyle now played by franchise newcomers Robert Longstreet and Anthony Michael Hall. Each gets a moment to shine and Green leans hard into nostalgia. Heartwarming at first, the incessant callbacks quickly wear thin, as references that should feel like subtle winks read as though shouted at the audience through a bullhorn. Endless recreations of iconic moments, some as recent as the previous film, feel forced and often grind the story to a halt. It’s clear that after the success of Halloween (2018), producers were able to get many of the original cast to return and felt obligated to give each one a moment even at the expense of the overall narrative. 

That’s not to say their inclusion in the story is bad. Tommy’s arc in particular is an interesting examination of lingering trauma in much the same way the previous film explored Laurie’s mental state. Tommy has likely spent years struggling with PTSD as well and when triggered, he channels his fear through anger and violence. He leads the mob that tears apart Haddonfield Memorial Hospital and his unthinking actions ignite a cascade of rage, fear, and sorrow that threatens to overwhelm the town. The problem is that the mob mentality theme feels way too forced and never quite finds its footing. Green seems to go out of his way to create a badass shot or iconic moment at every turn and the sheer volume of “meaningful” taglines eventually veers into absurdity. 

The genius of the original film is its subtlety. Carpenter relied on his audience to draw connections and create meaning in a fairly simple story, spawning decades worth of analysis and conversation. Halloween Kills gives us an ongoing narration of the plot with characters either spelling out obvious emotional beats or attempting to string together wildly incongruent ideas. The corny dialogue drives home points we could have made on our own in an attempt to justify a convoluted conclusion clearly designed to set up the upcoming Halloween Ends. 

Laurie herself is largely sidelined, recovering from stomach surgery after the attack from the prior film. When she learns of Michael’s escape, she insists on continuing to fight, but her injuries prevent her from doing much. Allyson (Andi Matichak) answers her grandmother’s call and joins the mob hunting Michael down. Karen (Judy Greer), the beleaguered voice of reason, attempts to talk sense into the bloodthirsty crowd leading to a bizarre plot line clearly meant to make a socially relevant statement about mob mentality. We also meet the new residents of the Strode house, finally sold and lavishly remodeled. While the couple, Big John (Scott MacArthur) and Little John (Michael McDonald), are charming, their inclusion in the story is unnecessary. Green may be trying to make a point about gentrification and the fetishization of violence and murder, but if so, its lost in the multitude of grand statements the film tries to hammer home and what we’re left with is a confusing mess. 

Halloween Kills is ultimately a story of good intentions with uncontrollable outcomes. Hawkins (Will Patton) and Laurie both blame themselves for Michael’s crimes and regret their inability to stop him sooner. The mob’s intentions are to protect the town, but they let their fear overtake their judgement and end up becoming the very monster they wish to destroy. It’s a noble goal and a welcome theme at a time when emotions seem to overtake judgement every day. But the message never quite takes shape and ends up feeling like a series of mini-lectures strung together by a fumbled plot. 

It’s interesting to see Haddonfield residents confront the memory of Michael even if it does feel slightly implausible, but the thematic whiplash is overwhelming. In the previous film, we were told that no one takes Laurie’s fears seriously, but suddenly his crimes are a shadow that’s been haunting the town for decades. Laurie seems to blame herself for Michael in a way that feels in direct opposition to her characterization in the 2018 film. Perhaps the biggest problem is that Green can’t seem to decide how he wants us to view Michael. Is he a troubled child in the body of a brutal killer who simply wants to return home? Or is he an unstoppable killing machine, the personification of pure evil? Green attempts to thread this needle through a poorly defined metaphor of looking out at Haddonfield from Michael’s childhood window. 

There are moments of pure terror and Michael has never seemed more unstoppable, but Halloween Kills ultimately feels too forced with glaring plot holes and preposterous assumptions that are hard to overlook. Despite having essentially three concluding sequences, we’re left on a cliffhanger that sets up the final chapter, Halloween Ends, due out next year. Perhaps with the cinematic world vastly shrunk, the final film in Green’s trilogy will return to the franchise’s simplistic strengths and give Laurie her final showdown with the Shape that haunts her. But until then, we’ll be scratching our heads and imagining a more cohesive film. 

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